- cross-posted to:
- worldnewsnonus@lemy.lol
- scotland
- cross-posted to:
- worldnewsnonus@lemy.lol
- scotland
JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.
The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.
She said “freedom of speech and belief” was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.
Earlier, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a “rising tide of hatred”.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.
…
Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
Tbh, it’s a badly thought out “law” that seems to be just a case of letting the police decide whether to act on it or not, letting them deal with things based on their own prejudices (e.g. weed is illegal in the UK, but if you were a racist copper you could arrest some black youths for smoking it and not some white kids). It’s cowardly politics, and avoids actually defining anything or drawing any lines in the sand.
Also, it’s not a crime to be a moron on Twitter. One might argue it’s where they belong.
Yes. Now if you expand this thought process you’ll find that the majority of laws are exactly this. Pretty much everything you do is both legal and illegal according to different laws. Which means you can be arrested, detained, etc for basically any reason at any time. It’s all down to if “they” (the cop you interact with, the DA, the judge, the high ranking official who just doesn’t like you, the media rallying against you, etc) want something to happen.
It’s a hallmark of fear based authoritarian governments.